Schumer coordinates Dem budget attack on GOP

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Democratic Senate leadership, got on a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning without realizing the reporters were already listening in. Schumer thought he was on a private line with four Democratic senators who were to talk with reporters about the current budget stalemate.

He told the group to make sure they label the GOP spending cuts as "extreme."

"I always use extreme, Schumer said. "That is what the caucus instructed me to use."

"The main thrust is basically that we want to negotiate and we want to come up with a compromise but the Tea Party is pulling Boehner too far over to the right and so far over that there is no more fruitful negotiations," Schumer said on the call. "The only way we can avoid a shutdown is for Boehner to come up with a reasonable compromise and not just listen to what the Tea Party wants. "

The four senators came on the call after Schumer abruptly went silent and followed Schumer's script closely.

Monday, March 28, 2011

It's that time of the year again, when we hand over to the government part of our paychecks to spend, spend, and spend even more so they can keep putting us into debt, debt, and more debt! It's also that time of the year again for our Effingham Tea Party rally!!

When: April 15th, 6pm - ?

Where: Old Effingham Courthouse, N Rt. 45, downtown Effingham, IL

Who?? GOOD QUESTION!!

Featured speakers: Adam Andrzejewski, Carlyle Rhodes, and back by popular demand......Dr. Joe Hartmann!

We will also be announcing an exciting opportunity for our children this summer - Vacation Patriot Camp - June 6th - 10th!!

We will have informational tables at the event to keep you informed on the issues that face us, including a candidate school for those of you who wish to throw your hat into the ring of politics!

Also, there will be bus riders coming down on their return from the Springfield rally earlier in the day. This could become the largest event we have held to this date!

And last, but definitely not least.....ATLAS SHRUGGED: THE MOVIE!!! You've read the book, now see it on the big screen! Effingham will be one of a few select cities across the nation who will be showing this movie on April 15th.

There will be show times at 8pm and 10pm on April 15th. More times may follow, and will be announced at the Tea Party!! RMC Cinemas at the Village Square Mall will be showing the film, so after the Tea Party, let's all go see ATLAS SHRUGGED!!!!

Spread the word! Forward this on to everyone you know! Tell your friends, tell your neighbors! Our work is not done! We will be victorious!!!

Obama ditches Oval for speech

An address from the Oval Office has at least three problems for President Obama. Among other things, it implies the nation is at war -- and if there is one thing the administration is rather emphatic about, it's that we are involved in a limited military action in Libya, not a war.

"The Oval Office calls to mind too many other images," said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution. "When you are going to war, you do the Oval -- if you claim it's not a war, you don't."

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Politics on Tap: Alcohol Producers Pour Out Campaign Cash for Parties

The Democratic Party has received a windfall from major wine producers during recent years, including some notable brands in California.

Among the top five alcohol-related political contributors during the 2010 election cycle, no one donated a greater percentage of cash to Democrats than E. & J. Gallo Winery, the Center finds. Individuals connected to the massive Sonoma County winery, famous for such brands as Gallo and Turning Leaf, uncorked more than $256,700 in the 2010 election cycle, a full 93 percent of which went to Democratic candidates or party committees.

Gallo winery employees are also notably the top donor to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her career.

While Obama searches for clarity, we're plunged into another war

He was in El Salvador, standing with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, when reporters asked him about his war in Libya.

It is indeed his war. He started it. He gave the order to launch the missiles over the weekend. And now the man who ran for president as an anti-war candidate owns his very own war.

But there has been confusion over which member of his coalition will command the war. Will Obama ask a foreign general to direct American troops? Will President Nicolas Sarkozy of France take the coalition lead?

On Tuesday, Obama was asked about these command issues. It wasn't a trick. It should have been expected. He stood there, and he opened his mouth.

"I would expect that over the next several days you will have clarity and a meeting of the minds of all those who are participating in the process," Obama said.

In that awkward stage in between being a little kid and a teenager, that space of years we’ve come to call “tween”, I can tell you that girls already have taken notice of their body shape and type and started comparing it to the celebrities they see on TV, girls often older than they are. This comparison influences the way they dress, what they eat, how they carry themselves, and most importantly how they view themselves when they look in the mirror. In a culture that dictates girls should be stick thin and flawless, dress provocatively and above their age group, and intimacy is expected lest you be considered a “prude”, it is harder for girls today than ever before to be comfortable in their own skin.

Michelle Obama has, on more than one occasion, drawn attention to her daughters’ weight and BMI (body mass index) in an attempt to justify her Food Police agenda. Rather than coming out and saying, “Gee, I really want to control what people eat and drink because I think it’d be fun”, the First Lady is poking her finger at her own kids and telling parents, “See, I relate to you. Your kids aren’t the only ones with a little paunch – look at my girls!” (The Obama girls are NOT fat or even close to it; in fact, they are beautiful, healthy girls that don’t deserve any of this, in my opinion.)

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Today Judge Doyne, the special master appointed by the Supreme Court to consider the impact of the education cuts made to the budget, found against the state, ordering them to pay $1.6 billion to Abbott school districts.

In this astounding display of judicial supremacy, the judge ACKNOWLEDGED that even though we’ve spent more money than any other state on our urban school districts, their performance is still declining. He said:

“Despite spending levels that meet or exceed virtually every state in the country, and that saw a significant increase in spending levels from 2000 to 2008, our ‘at risk’ children are now moving further from proficiency.”

So obviously the solution is to spend more money, that makes perfect sense, right?

Hot Air says Scott Brown is just a little ambiguous, Well, sure. He's responding to the Massachusetts general election environment, playing for what he sees as the independent vote, because Scott Brown has never done this before. Yes, he knows the Massachusetts electorate very well, but he is forgetting the energy and vitality that an energized base can bring. In his reelection campaign he will not have national support if he is weak on this issue.

So it's a tradeoff between grabbing at moderate independents and energizing your base. Good luck, Scott.

But Allahpundit makes an interesting prediction: if Speaker Boehner bulls the Planned Parenthood defunding out into its own bill for Harry Reid to quash, I don't think Republican voters will blame Harry. I think they'll blame our wimpy House Crier.

Scott Brown: I oppose defunding Planned Parenthood

We all understand that primarying him would be a kamikaze mission since at this point he may well be the only Republican in Massachusetts capable of getting elected to the Senate. That knowledge has bought him a wide, wide berth among the base. But I keep thinking — at some point, he’s going to cross a line and they’re going to go full RINO-stomp on him. Not even because they want to. Because they have to.

There’s a lot of deliberate ambiguity here, obviously. He’s open to cutting PP’s budget … just not the whole thing. And he’s open to voting for the House GOP’s budget resolutions even when they completely defund PPP … although he’s not happy about it. In fact, the ambiguity goes back to the aftermath of last year’s special election, when he told Barbara Walters that yes, he’s pro-choice, but “I’m against federal funding of abortions.” If federal money went towards PP’s abortion practice, he’d have to vote no, but since it’s earmarked for contraception and unrelated services (which of course frees up other money at PP to apply towards abortions), well, that’s A-OK. Behold the dilemma of a Massachusetts Republican, forever inching his way along a political tightrope.

He’s the third Senate Republican, along with Collins and Murkowski, to come out against defunding PP. Which leaves Boehner … where? If he attaches the PP rider to the next House budget bill and any of these three end up voting against it for that reason, the Democrats will crow about “bipartisan opposition” to the “renegade” House Republicans or whatever. Boehner’s going to have to yank it, right? Or at least split it off into a separate bill and let the Senate shoot it down, which will preserve the viability of the overarching budget bill while giving the base a new reason to be angry at Harry Reid.

As I pointed out when he was appointed to his position, as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights (the official Israel basher) Falk is a believer of all kinds of conspiracy theories including "trutherism."

FALK: Well, of course very speculative, I think that Griffin’s book is a devastating critique of the Sunstein position. The Sunstein position seems to reflect either an implicit or explicit anxiety in the power elite that is running this country that they have to do everything they can to discredit those that are questioning the official version of what took place on 9/11. That they do this in part by pretending that by calling something a conspiracy theory, you’ve eliminated the need to investigate the factual reality of what took place. The liberal press has gone along with that to a frightening degree because they seem to feel that their reputation depends on not endorsing any kind conspiracy notion or anything that is labeled a conspiracy, unless of course it comes from a progressive source, in which case they jump to establish a conspiracy theory. [The liberal press] are very ready ever since the Cold War, to call any sympathy with progressive causes as the basis for criminal accountability. You see that in the pursuit of some Muslim religious figures, not only here, but in Western Europe and elsewhere.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

But to get to the service station, you have to wear shoes. It won't help the car one bit, until you complete a long series of complicated and difficult tasks, most of which depend upon having tied shoes.

Similarly, in order to reign in soaring costs for state employee medical and pension plans, states must first get away from collective bargaining on those issues. It is simply not possible to persuade union leadership to agree to sane benefit packages.

Perhaps I'll give this article full treatment at some other time. It's so full of fallacious argument that it will be a difficult slog, but maybe someone will be enlightened by it.

Not only do unions fight to work for better working conditions, unions give workers voice to advocate for the people they serve. In a Tribune letter-to-the-editor, former teacher Jessica Havens writes, “… the purpose of having a teachers union is to protect the rights of children and adults in that system who do not have administrative power.” However, pundits and politicians are forcing stand-offs between labor and management. Maybe it’s because cooperation may be a step in the right direction in narrowing the income gap between the richest and the poorest Americans. Currently, the richest 10% controls 2/3 of American’s net worth.

"This is what democracy looks like!" the people are chanting and clapping with a pretty awesome beat. This is very real and it's happening now. Friends, allies, workers, we're all here at the capitol in Madison in the fight for our rights. The spirit inside and out of the packed building are filled with faces showing all ranges of emotions...."

There was no mention of that "range of emotion" that included hate.

Death threats to Wisconsin Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and his party's 18 senators have been direct and unambiguous. They are numerous and specific and they are coming from protestors in sympathy with union protestors connected to the President of the United States. But the President is silent...Organizing for America is silent and so have been NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, CNN, the New York Times, and most major media.

These are excerpts from an e-mail sent March 9 to Republican senators:

"Read below for...possible scenarios in which you will die...I hope you have a good time in hell...we have planned...to put...a nice little bullet in your head....I as well as many others know where you and your family live...we wouldn't leave it there....we have also built several bombs...placed in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent...that includes your house, your car, the state capitol, and well, I won't tell you all of them because that's just no fun...we will "get rid of" (in which I mean kill) you....Please make your peace with God as soon as possible and say goodbye to your loved ones....YOU WILL DIE!!!"

Is dislike of Sarah Palin all just a hand stamp to enter the club of elitism, or should we take those who don't like her at their word?

I think Ace and Rush draw a false dichotomy here. People who don't like Palin don't like her for real. They also don't like her because they want to be cool, and picking on Sarah Palin is in some quarters considered cool.

But while some may find a way to express their true reasons, there may be others who can't explain their reaction to her. They search for reasons, and adopt what the in crowd has come up with for themselves.

Similarly, there is a lot of enforcement of in-group cohesion-. If you want to call yourself a liberal or even a public intellectual, you have to find something wrong with Sarah Palin.

“This is a problem for the movement,” said Will about what Palin represents. “For conservatism, because it is a creedal movement, this is a disease to which it is susceptible.”

The line of modern conservatism that can be traced back to National Review founder William F. Buckley would be broken by Palin, Will said.

“There’s no Reagan without Goldwater, no Goldwater without National Review and no National Review without Buckley — and the contrast between he and Ms. Palin is obvious.”

Asked if the GOP would remain the party of ideas if Palin captures the nomination, Will said: “The answer is emphatically no.” (Related: Liberals like Palin candidacy)

The sneering condemnation is most unappealing. Like all such snobbery, it finally detracts from the snob, not the -- pardon me -- victim of the snobbery.

When George Will says that Palin is placing far too much emphasis on a "creedal" appeal, well, I think that's a fair criticism. I've made that argument myself, that a successful politics must be evangelistic and convert-hungry like Christianity, instead of rooted in born-to cultural belonging-by-birth mode like Judaism.

Palin's primary thesis is that most Americans believe, at heart, the same things we do, and that they will buy our creed if it's presented in unapologetic terms. So to Palin, and to me, presenting our creed is evangelistic.

Rush Limbaugh: I Don't Get the Criticism of Palin; It Must Be a Shibboleth of the Educated Class

You know, I've lived my whole life not knowing the actual meaning of shibboleth. I could sort of understand it in context -- sort of -- as a blip-word, a word you sort of blip over. I knew it was used in the context of liberal shibboleths and conservative shibboleths but I just sort of read that as "bromides" or "dogma."

One of the biggest sources of frustration in arguing with a liberal is that the liberal refuses to take your stated reasons for your beliefs as your real reasons for the belief. If you say "I don't support quota or racial-plus-factor-based affirmative action, because I think it's unfair to discriminate against white people, too, just as it's wrong to discriminate against anyone based on their race" they almost reflexively offer up the secret motivation they assign to you: "You don't like black people, that's what your problem is."

If you state you want to keep taxes low because the private sector flourishes under a low-tax regime, and it's the private sector that creates wealth while the government merely transfers it (and destroys part of it in the process), they of course ignore that stated rationale, and decide, in the twinkling of an eye: "You hate poor people. Also, you probably hate black people too. In fact, you probably hate poor people in the first place because you hate black people and many of them are poor."

I do this myself a lot. Hell, everyone does. It doesn't work out well, at least not if you're attempting to persuade a would-be ally. It's really a technique to be used only against those you've decided are unreachable opponents, because once that card is played, that's it as far as a genuine exchange of points of view.

When George Will says that Palin is placing far too much emphasis on a "creedal" appeal, well, I think that's a fair criticism. I've made that argument myself, that a successful politics must be evangelistic and convert-hungry like Christianity, instead of rooted in born-to cultural belonging-by-birth mode like Judaism. (I realize I am pigeonholing Judaism and not acknowledging there is a conversion/evangelical component to it-- but for purposes of this analogy, please allow me my simplification.) An evangelistic faith which requires only that converts believe in a series of plausible claims can gain many converts, whereas a faith based largely in born-to culture will tend to have a sharply, sharply limited upper bound of possible growth. And to many (myself included), Palin seems to frequently be attempting a politics based upon the latter mode -- self-identification in particular born-to cultural traditions.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

As the latest demonstration of his lack of economic depth, President Obama put forth a series of falsehoods in the form of a press conference. The indispensible Jeff Dunetz pointed out the tsunami of falsehoods, so Go Read That.

But the president also used his typically bad logic to push his green agenda.

Because even if we were to grant his false claim that the US has only 2% of the world's oil and uses 25% of it, there would be nothing wrong with that. We are the world's biggest economy, and there is a world market for oil. We are just as much at the mercy of that market as anyone else.

The unspoken premise is that there is some fair amount of oil to which we are entitled. The implication is that our oil ration bears some relation to the amount we produce. But if that were so, then countries that produce little or no oil at all, such as Japan or the Koreas, would not be entitled to any.

The fact that President Obama believes this argument to be persuasive, even dispositive, demonstrates further his socialist mindset. We do not have a ration, and there would nothing wrong with the United States using up every last drop of oil the rest of the world produces, as long as we're willing topay for it.

And if there is some ration of oil to which we are entitled, whether based on our production or not, who determines that ration? Should the United States unilaterally disawow any more oil, or should some outside body such as the United Nations alot us our proper share?

Barack Obama has opted for the former. It is the clear policy of this administration that the United States should not use as much of the world's oil as its people would like to use.Yet in his disingenuity, he claims only to be trying to wean us from foreign oil.

But weaning us from foreign oil contraindicates the death grip by which the administrative state holds the domestic oil industry. While this president speaks of ending our dependence on foreign oil, his every policy move has the opposite effect.

Why should the United States not use every last drop of oil it can find, whether from domestic supplies or purchased on the world market?

There are only three possible reasons. To allow it for the use of others, to preserve oil for future use, or to keep it from being used at all.

In the Obama socialist mindset, fairness and sharing are values above almost everything. If two people prosper unequally, the suffering of the one who doesn't prosper as highly is measured not by the physical state of their existence, but by their situation relative to the one who is better off. Likewise, if two nations prosper unequally, the actual level of development and well-being of the cultures doesn't matter, only that by some measure there is disparity. So oil use must be equalized, or clearly someone is doing better than someone else and a grave injustice is done.

Future generations, either at home or abroad, may not need oil at all. To them, internal combustion and the attendant need for lubrication, as well as direct burning of petroleum for heat, may be as unnecessary as most of us today find wood or whale oil. With advances in robotics and other technology, future generations may be able to extract oil from places and in ways we currently cannot. It is as likely that they have more abundant energy supplies as less abundant, whether they get their energy from oil or not.

But the real goal of keeping the US from using oil is not to dis-empower the oil-rich nations of Southwest Asia who have such enmity for us, but to keep it in the ground. There is a confluence of Global Warming hysteria (still affixed in the leftist hymnal), the religious desire for clean air and water (as if ours were unbreathable and undrinkable), and a sneaking suspicion that the Earth somehow needs the oil. How the Earth will use the oil if we don't is unclear.

The President also notes that drilling for oil won't solve our whole problem. Accepting that arguendo, just because something isn't the entire answer doesn't mean it should not be done. The teleprompter makes regular use of the strawman argument, and so its reader gets a lot of mileage from it. Drilling and exploring for more oil would be helpful, and not doing those things is most certainly unhelpful to anything but the green, socialist agenda.

In granting that the US produces 2% of the world's oil, we are forced to note the incredible array of constraints placed on oil production and the reasons for it. With his boot still firmly on the neck of the oil industry, Obama need not remind Americans how little we actually produce

Friday, March 11, 2011

To a liberal, everything good should receive government funding. But since nothing is inherently good or evil, that means everything is good to someone. so everything should receive government funding.

Because you wouldn't want to send the message that something is bad, would you?

Few things — not even the threat of a coffee shortage — bother me quite so much as what I call the Existential Theory of Liberalism:

Everything that exists must be subsidized by the federal government; ergo, to argue against government subsidies for something is to advocate the abolition of that thing.

The Existential Theory of Liberalism can be seen in action whenever any conservative proposes reducing federal expenditures for, say, the National Endowment for the Arts, and is therefore accused by liberals of being “anti-art.” By the same token, if you criticize the federal Department of Education, you are “anti-education,” and if you oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund embryonic stem-cell research, you are “anti-science.”

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Either President Obama has documentation to show where he was born, or he doesn't. It's appropriate to show it if it exists or to say that it doesn't exist.

And I can accept that it doesn't exist. Did Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln have birth certificates? Kinda doubt it. Jimmy Carter, after all, was the first president to be born in a hospital.

I've always said I don't care where he was born. His mom was from Kansas, and that satisfies the natural-born requirement well enough for me. The rest is a technicality, and I don't want to see him removed from office for that.

OK, so maybe that's not quite accurate. I'd rather see him removed from office for being an incompetent Marxist.

So I'm more concerned with the 52% of voters who bought his socialist snake oil, and the educational system that produced them.

Mike Huckabee Alludes To Obama Growing Up In Kenya; Media Pounces; I Hereby Declare This Is Obama's Problem, Not Huckabee's

Allah's been following this for the last couple of days. In an interview, Huckabee alluded to Obama growing up in Kenya; he apparently mixed up Obama's complicated richly textured tapestry of nuanced diversity lineage and background, and misspoke.

He immediately clarified that he had misspoke.

I have a weird take on the Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory. Few share it. On one hand, I do not believe in it, at all. I disbelieve it for cosmological reasons, for one thing -- that Obama could be evicted from office due to this strikes me as such a Magic Button Happy Ending that I would almost be forced to confess the active hand of an Intelligent Designer in our political disputes, which I strongly doubt -- and for more specific reasons, there is evidence of his Hawaiian birth (notices in newspapers) that seems so fortuitous to seem just too unlikely to be credited.

This is Obama's choice and Obama's problem. Some have speculated that he keeps it secret precisely in order to make the opposition start inventing explanations about the secret. Well, fine then -- but you can hardly blame people then for doing what Obama intended they would do.

I, personally, am sick to death of hearing media sycophants demand that John Boehner affirm that Obama was born in Hawaii while not asking that Obama do the same.

Boehner doesn't know. Wasn't there. Doesn't have the bleeding records. Obama does, and yet the media refuses to ask the one guy in a position to settle this a damn thing.

We're all just supposed to vouch for facts not within our competency in order to spare President Douchetool the duty to answer questions himself.

Watch Bob Chanin tell his NEA union that the most important thing about the union is political power. Actual teaching goals are well and good, but the power that comes from union dues is the main thing.

The crowd is clearly moved on an emotional level by his words.

What kind of group gives a standing ovation to someone who brags about raw political power?

The kind who have to chant "Peaceful Protest" to remind themselves not to show who they are.